


We Are, Largely, Who We Remember Ourselves to Be

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Curse Workers, Alternate Universe - Mob, Cursework, Dreamwalking, Gen, Irish Mafia, Murder, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Zayn Malik moved from Bradford to live with his auntie in Wolverhampton and began Grade 11 – two months late, on into October by the time he first sat down in class – one of the first things he learned was that in Wolverhampton, if you were a Worker, you either belonged to the Horans or the McGuinesses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are, Largely, Who We Remember Ourselves to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaikamahine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/gifts), [jannika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jannika/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. We have no connection nor permissions from One Direction, X-Factor, Simon Cowell, SyCo Inc., Sony, ITV, or Columbia Records. No libel intended.  
>  **Notes:** This will make more sense if you've read The Curse Workers, but you don't strictly have to have.

** We Are, Largely, Who We Remember Ourselves to Be **

**_001._**  
When Liam Payne was five years old, Max George mysteriously disappeared, and Liam’s kidney died.

Liam almost did, too.

 ** _002._**  
When Zayn Malik moved from Bradford to live with his auntie in Wolverhampton and began Grade 11 – two months late, on into October by the time he first sat down in class – one of the first things he learned was that in Wolverhampton, if you were a Worker, you either belonged to the Horans or the McGuinesses.

“You don’t want a part of the Horans,” said the ratty-looking boy, Tom, assigned to show Zayn around school. “They look more powerful but it’s just ‘cause they’re flashy. The McGuinesses, they’re good people. Old family. Pay for skills. You a Worker?”

Zayn shook his head and held his gloves between his teeth to wash his hands. He could see Tom in the mirror, staring at Zayn’s bare hands and looking skittish.

“Nah,” Zayn lied, and the gray streak at the front of his hair gave him away.

 ** _003._**  
Out on the playground, Niall Horan and two of his pals, Tomlinson and Styles, were making their rounds to sell contraband – Red Vines and Whispas as much as amulets and Worked charms, since the candy was cheaper and they could turn a big profit without suffering blowback. Tomlinson did the most actual Work on their daily recess rounds, since people wanted a pick-me-up for the second half of the day, and his blowback just made him sleepy, sluggish, and irritable, which wasn’t hard to disguise as a general afternoon malaise.

Nobody really knew what Styles did. Maybe even nothing; he looked too innocent with his big, round, green eyes and mop of curly hair, to be a Worker.

Zayn watched them as he leaned up against the brick wall, tapping his fingertips against the cement.

“Hey,” said Liam Payne. He held out a red rope of candy. “Red Vine?”

 ** _004._**  
Niall Horan was a Luck Worker, like most of his family, which accounted for their success over the years. You bring some bad luck to the McGuinesses and some good luck rains back on you; eh, who’s it hurt?

When Niall was five, his older brother sat him down over biscuits and milk and homework and he said, “You know a kid named Payne?”

“Pain?” Niall had asked, and jammed a whole cookie in his mouth. “What’s that kinda name?”

“Liam Payne,” Greg said, impatiently. “You know him?”

Niall shook his head.

Greg handed Niall a crisp stack of bills. “Get to know him.”

 ** _005._**  
Liam had been working, officially, for the Horans for five years before Louis Tomlinson showed up at the front door of Greg’s graceful mansion and said, “I do Emotions and I’m the best. Jay McGuiness made me an offer, but I want to see if you can up it.”

Liam recognized Louis from the school yard. He’d watched Louis and his little friend, younger but taller and just as popular, traipse around at recess with their gloves off when the minders were otherwise occupied.

They were risk-takers, Louis and the other one. Careless about their Work, or at least Louis was, since no one had seen what his friend could do.

Liam couldn’t afford carelessness.

 ** _006._**  
The curly-haired kid, one of the Horans’, came up to Zayn in the library and sat down across from him, feet up on the rungs of Zayn’s chair like they’d been intimate friends for years, and stared at him.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Harry,” said Harry Styles. “What kind of Work d’you do?”

“Who said I’m a Worker at all?”

Harry nodded towards Zayn’s head. “Your hair. That’s blowback, isn’t it?”

Zayn gritted his teeth at the back. “You a Worker?”

Harry nodded. “So what do you do?”

“You answer first and maybe I’ll tell,” said Zayn. He closed his library book and instead started in on the piece in his sketchpad, a study in perspective full of cyborg dinosaurs in a marsh.

Harry Styles just smiled a Mona Lisa smirk. “I don’t tell that, me.”

 ** _007._**  
Zayn ended up following Liam to the Horan mansion a few weeks later. Niall was nice enough, and Louis was a laugh even when he wasn’t Working the joy into people. Zayn still didn’t know what Harry did, and it made his teeth hurt; he didn’t know Liam’s, either, but he had his suspicions and he didn’t need to know.

Liam never took his gloves off. Ever.

For a cool upfront ten grand, Zayn joined Niall’s crew and they took his glove off him to cut his finger so he could sign in blood.

“Great,” said Niall, after he’d filed it away in a black lacquer box and locked it away. “I think I got a job next week you’d be perfect for. If you can’t, I’ll give it to Harry, but his blowback’s bad. I like to keep him in commission.”

 ** _008._**  
Four nights before Zayn’s first job, he crawled in through Liam’s bedroom window. They both lived on the same block of Cowell Row, where most of the made Workers on the Horan side lived. It’s not as nice as where McGuiness put his Workers, up in the Geffen Arms bloc apartments, but it was safer. There were more families.

“Shit-jesus,” Liam cursed, grabbing his chest as he turned towards the sound of the glass sliding down again. “You couldn’t come through the door?”

“I’ve never Worked on purpose,” Zayn said. She shoved his hands in his pockets. “And I can’t let Niall down. My aunt needs the money for putting up with me.”

Liam nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. He covered his hands with his thighs, but Zayn could see his bare wrists, black and dull like they were covered in chalk. The black spidered up his veins, choking his blood with cobwebs.

Zayn sat down next to Liam anyway. “I don’t know how to do it on purpose.” He paused. “I don’t know how to kill someone on purpose.”

 ** _009._**  
Now they shared a secret.

 ** _010._**  
The next day, Niall – chewing on a Red Vine – stopped Zayn in the corridor.

“Don’t worry about it, mate,” he said. “Liam talked to me, and it’s fine, we’ll train you up first. Start small, I just thought after the thing in Bradford with that Bieber kid, you knew how to control it. Harry can do this one, and you’ll owe me a free.”

 ** _011._**  
When Zayn Malik was eighteen years old, Nathan Sykes mysteriously disappeared, and Harry Styles brought him a beautiful new drawing desk, ivory with mahogany accents.

“Thanks,” Zayn said, in awe. “Good Work. Looks real.”

“It is real,” Harry said, and his voice sounded raspy and a little haunted. “Ivory’s just bone.”

“Teeth, technically,” Zayn said. He clapped one gloved hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Y’alright? You look peaky.”

Harry shrugged. “Blowback. I’ll be fine.”

“You could take a nap here,” Zayn offered. “Before you go home.”

 ** _012._**  
Harry dreamt of cyborg dinosaurs roaring their way through a marshland. It was the most restful sleep he’d had in ages.

 ** _013._**  
When Niall Horan was nineteen, Tom Parker sleepwalked his way off the roof of Geffen Arms.


End file.
